Professor　Takayuki Yakura, Ph.D.
Associate Professor　Takashi Okitsu, Ph.D.　
Assistant Professor　Kengo Kasama, Ph.D.

Research Interests
　Research within the Yakura (SBOC) Group is focused on the study of green chemistry and medicinal chemistry. A portion of this research is directed toward the developing new environmentally benign procedures for the production of pharmaceuticals, flavors and fragrances, and agrochemicals. We also are interested in the development of new synthetic methods and their application to the synthesis of biologically active natural products. Moreover we have been pursuing the organofluorine chemistry.

Emphasis is presently placed on the following four research projects.
1) Development of novel environmentally benign catalytic oxidations based on the hypervalent iodine chemistry: to design and synthesize new hybrid catalysts with a new concept.
2) Synthetic studies towards the total synthesis of natural products such as allelopathic heliespirones and phospholipase A2 inhibitor cinatrins using stereoselective rhodium catalyzed carbenoid reactions.
3) Development of the novel approach for the synthesis of sphingosine derivatives and its application for the drug design based on the sphingolipids.
4) Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of organofluorine compounds as novel drug candidates.